Weekend Readings

There were three rather interesting pieces posted at Salon over the weekend, all in one way or another related to the torture issue, which, I confess, has become something of an obsession with me lately, a kind of litmus test of being politically serious in this country.

In one, Glenn Greenwald, contrasts the absurd positions of nut jobs like Charles Krauthammer with the surprisingly forthright rejection of torture by no less a nut job than Ronald Reagan, especially in the matter of the need to prosecute torturers no matter what the circumstances. Of course, in Krauthammer’s view, torture is unacceptable unless there is a ticking time bomb (amazing, isn’t it, how the TV melodrama 24 has penetrated the American psyche?) or if you have captured a high value prisoner whom you need to knock silly in order to reveal the plot that threatens all civilization. Which is to say, torture is always permitted because, in these times, either or both of the above scenarios might be true, and you will never know for sure unless you are willing to do what it takes to find out.

In the second, Norman Kelley takes journalists to task for their reluctance to even use the word torture, preferring the bromides of enhanced interrogation techniques, etc. I especially like his conclusion:

Let's face it: the United States has become a politically depraved society masquerading as a democratic republic. It's easy to cite people like Charles Krauthammer's demented justification for torture, but what else would one expect from someone whose profession is a willing executioner of such a policy. However, average Americans also think it's okay to torture people. Now you have reporters too afraid to call engage in truthful reporting.

This does not bode well for the democratic process. It's Orwellian, which makes the process of self-correction difficult. This kind of mindset may well represent the insidious nazification of American society.

The country may have tried to save its soul by voting for Obama, but it has shown that it has opted to do the devil's work by being so casual about torture, rationalizing it, and refusing to call it by its true name.

Which brings up the subject of Obama’s press conference, especially his statements on torture. There is an inherent contradiction in the apparent recognition that the United States did engage in torture and the reluctance to do anything about it. When I listened to Obama’s answers, I was really uncomfortable. I must be one of a handful of people who find them deeply disturbing. And yes, I went back and read them and on reading rather than hearing they are not that bad. But, for my money, what’s the point of all this hemming and hawing and soul-searching and nuance. In a way, it is just as bad as the journalists Mr. Kelley criticized above.

Why can’t our politicians just answer a simple question simply, that is, yes, water-boarding is torture and yes, it was authorized at a high, if not the highest, level of government. And another problem is that in framing the issue, the President came perilously close to the kind of perception of the world that is implicit in the Krauthammer framing. If you reject torture of these individuals because you could have obtained useful information in other ways, doesn’t that imply that if it is possible to obtain useful information by torture and that if it were not possible to gain that information lawfully and morally, then unlawful and immoral means might be justified? Obama’s response lacks clarity and unnecessarily weakens his case. Once more, the 24 mindset is revealed.

Which brings me to the third article, America’s Necessary Dark Night of the Soul, by Gary Kamiya. Kamiya argues eloquently for the need to have a kind of national blood-letting over the Bush years. I’m not sure that some sort of truth commission will provide that, or whether the sort of blunt recognition of guilt will ever take place, but the Kamiya article does provide a serious start to thinking about it.

The kinds of prosecutions or even truth-telling being suggested on the left are political acts, and sometimes political acts of this nature are necessary, particularly in a democracy. It is not the punishment that matters so much - whether Bush or Cheney or Bybee or Rumsfeld or any of a host of lesser thugs get sent up the river – but the act itself and the shame and disgrace it brings to the figures indicted. I don’t think societies can look forward unless they have pretty squarely faced the past, what happened in the past, and resolved not to let it happen again.